Our long international nightmare will soon come to an end. Trying to acquire housing in Final Fantasy XIV is prohibitively difficult. Not only do you have to win the lottery, but the overall number of plots available is limited.
This only became more difficult when the FFXIV team turned off the automatic housing demolition system. The system is intended to free up housing that’s not actively being used. If a player or Free Company leader hasn’t entered their lot within 45 days, the estate on that lot is demolished and returned to the pool of open housing lots. It allows for a certain amount of churn in housing.
Automatic demolition has been offline since December 5, 2021, around the launch of the Endwalker expansion. It was originally scheduled to go back into service on March 9, but the team decided to keep it off indefinitely due to world events. It seems the indefinite hiatus is now coming to an end.
In a blog post on the Lodestone today, the FFXIV team announced that automatic demolition would be coming back with Patch 6.3. The upcoming patch is scheduled for launch sometime in early January.
The timer for automatic demolition will reset for any player or Free Company member that has entered the estate at least once during this lengthy suspension period. For those that haven’t entered their estate during the suspension period, the timer will resume with remaining time they had left prior to the suspension. So if you had 10 days left before demolition back in 2021 and you haven’t visited your estate, the countdown will start at 10 days when Patch 6.3 drops.
This is only one of the ways that the FFXIV team is trying to alleviate the housing problem. In fact, more housing is also coming with Patch 6.3. There will be additional wards for all residential areas, adding six regular wards and six subdivisions to each. That’s a total of 1,800 lots per world, which should definitely help alongside automatic demolition returning.
Fixes for housing are only part of what’s coming Patch 6.3. The patch, entitled “Gods Revel, Lands Tremble,” is coming in early January. It’ll feature more quests for the main scenario, the next Deep Dungeon, new Island Sanctuary content, and more. While we’re waiting you can jump into the current Starlight Celebration seasonal event to get some holiday prizes!
